- I'll wear this top to my local, or in my back yard, or as a beach cover up, but the fabric is only nominally fabric, as it happens.
- Furthermore, the boxiness of the drape (that's how it goes with linen) is not particularly flattering on my body. In truth, I could easily modify the fit of the finished garment (not that I can generally get it up to alter something after sewing it), but people - it's transparent.
- Were I to use this fabric again, I'd underline it in the same fabric to improve its opacity. Of course, that might wreck the finished garment in other ways.
OK, update on the update: I couldn't stop myself. I just serged off about 1" from each side-seam at the hip, tapering to 1/2" at the waist, up to the armscye, to see how this would affect the fit . The shirt fits me more attractively this way. There's so much to learn about the properties of linen! Not sure if it'll box out again but this is an interesting experiment. Of course, the top's still see-through, but vaguely less so, now that it doesn't hang away from my body as much as it did. I also think I should have cut the bindings (arm, neck) on the grain of stretch. The arms and neck are too high in this version, I suspect because I used the linen on the non-stretch. God help me, I think I may actually make this one again just to see. Don't worry - I'll try not to write 3 posts about it.
Posts
Ahahahaha!!!! Time for us both the sew a silk cami!
ReplyDeleteIf you read the bottom of the post (just updated) you'll see I hacked away at this one again - I'm having a crazy scientist with scissors moment! But really, I think a cami may be de rigeur, even if I do hate the idea. Or we've got to find better linen!
DeleteIt's fun to both be exploring the same fabric at the same time! Shall we find some silk knit next? i'm curious about that stuff!
DeleteGet some charmeuse! It's the best. I think I have some in my stash... Hmmm. Just don't dare me.
DeleteIs there no possibility of a slip or camisole underneath??
ReplyDeleteThere is! (Well less so now that i just hacked away at the top again 5 minutes ago.) Thing is, I got all shirty with Gillian about how linen is supposed to be cool and easy/breezy with nothing underneath it. I didn't want something that constructed. But there may be no other way. It's less translucent now that I took some ease out of it but it's still not dinner wear.
DeleteI've made several garments (tees and cardis)out of linen knit. Here is my two cents. The fabric is lovely, soft,relatively drapey, and much less see through if you pre-wash hot and dry it the dryer on medium heat. You will get about a 2-inch shrink per yard with this method, BUT the resulting fabric is not tissue thin and quite wearable. After the pre-wash I only cold wash and line dry.
ReplyDeleteJilly - that is awesome info! Thank you. Of course, I hand washed and hung it to dry :-) I'll take the shrinkage for some opacity! I even have some of this left over - so that is how I will treat it. Cheers, K
DeleteI prewashed mine twice in hot water and hot dryer... so I guess mine is already as opaque as it can possibly go!
DeleteDamn, I was kind of hoping that this advice might help us both. BTW, yours was WAY less see-through than mine. Mine was ridiculous.
DeleteThanks so much for sharing your in-depth analysis of this fabric, which I was not familiar with. I recently purchased McCalls 7411, which is a tank with self-fa ric overlay, for just this kind od scenario. I buy a lot of fabric online, and it's always a crap shoot if 'very lightweight' is going to be sufficiently opaque for public use. Just a thought....
ReplyDeleteWell thanks for reading about it! Online shopping is a crap shoot I know well. What's scary is that, when I bought this, I didn't have any sense that it would end up being this see through in the end! I love Jilly's idea about washing and drying it - just to shrink the weave a little. I wonder if that would work with certain other "very lightweight" fibers?
DeleteI love linen. I'd love to read more posts about it. I like your suggestion of self-lining it. One vote for Kristin redoing the Concord pattern in linen!
ReplyDeleteHa! Well it's likely - and thank you for your vote, Anon :-)
DeleteNot sure if the linen knit I've sewn with is the same, but the Telio linen knit from Fabric.com and the (unknown brand, but I would swear it's the same Telio) from Emmaonesock will beef up a bit with machine washing/drying, but not to the point I would go without a cami. I like it better as a light as air little drapy cardigan.
ReplyDeleteVery smart suggestion Karen! I'm going to keep that in mind the next time I make a cardi.
DeleteNot sure where you're at with the alterations, but if you do decide to redo the arm & neck bindings, I've had good luck stabilizing poor-recovering knit necklines by including clear elastic in the binding. Of course you're using far more sophisticated equipment than I have access to. ;)
ReplyDeleteI have yet to find a linen knit (well, there was one I found once that was 3% linen, which I don't think actually counts) to play with---this is fun to read about. I'd be tempted to make a cami/ tank top out of the remaining fabric to wear under it... But silk would also be lovely. ;)